


Church Bells

by Vasser



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Anger, Attempted Suicide, Betrayal, Broken Heart, Crying, Dark Thoughts, Depression, Despair, Emotional Distance, Feelings, Flashbacks, Hospital, Infidelity, Kinda, Love, Marriage, Memories, Multi, Sadness, Self-Hatred, Social Isolation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Tears, This is not going to be very happy at first, Triggers, Unhappiness, Unrequited Love, Wedding, Wedding Invitation, broken hearted, broken relationship, emotion, friends - Freeform, hopeless, let down, thoughts, vent fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:08:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vasser/pseuds/Vasser
Summary: Akira has changed Yusuke's life forever, and it seems to be for the worse. He just doesn't know how to go on anymore...
Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Okumura Haru, Kurusu Akira/Yusuke Kitagawa
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Church Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. I'm sorry, this is going to be very dark for a while. This is the first thing I have written since my friend committed suicide back in January and it will function as an emotional vent fic for a while though I do intend to make things better... Eventually. 
> 
> Trigger warnings are in place because writing very messed up dark shit is how I cope. 
> 
> To anyone still reading, please just... Whatever you think of this, don't leave anything negative, because for once this isn't a fic I've written for you guys, it's something I'm writing for my own emotional benefit.
> 
> Thank you for understanding x
> 
> If you do decide to read it I hope you really feel the emotion I tried to put into this.

He should never have accepted that damned invitation. It was the final straw for him. Pain, complete and undiluted pain, flowed through his chest and poisoned what was left of his heart. It was cruel, so unbelievably cruel... Though, he supposed Akira Kurusu had always been quite a cruel being at heart. Yusuke just hadn't realised it until Akira had handed him a wedding invitation right after they had finished making love one night. He had never even known that Akira was in a relationship. Well, a different relationship. He had believed Akira loved him.

Upon getting home from the wedding, he glanced at the invitation once again. 'You are formally invited to celebrate the union of Kurusu Akira and Okumura Haru.' Even though it was unreasonable, he had hated Haru today. The artist had never felt anything like hate before but today it had ravaged him so thoroughly that he didn't think he had anything left in him but hollowness. 

Akira should have been the one receiving his hate, not his poor now-wife. It seemed that both he and Haru had known nothing about the other. The black-haired male was the snake, the cog in the works. He had debated telling Haru at the wedding today to save her the pain of being cheated on in the future and to hurt someone in return for having his heart shattered. However, as his hate began to dissipate he decided not to ruin her happiness. She had done nothing wrong, and maybe Akira would not go behind her back now that they were married. Blissful ignorance was better than subjecting her to the utter despair Yusuke felt deep in his bones.

Stepping into his apartment, he locked his door for the final time. Due to the high amount of home invasions in the area he had three brand new locks on his door. Good luck getting in to whoever came looking for him. By the time anyone realised what he had done it would be too late. 

He spared a mournful glance for his half-finished paintings and experimental sculptures. Reflections of his soul that would never be complete and would never be bared to the world. Even if he had intended to live on, there was nothing left of his soul to put onto a canvas anyway. Akira had made sure of that...

{ _Everyone was delighted at the ringing of the church bells as the newlyweds shared their first kiss as husband and wife. Yusuke wanted to be happy for them, truly, but he just felt sick with hate and guilt and nastiness. Right now, to everyone but him, the church bells sounded sweet and lovely. They were wedding bells. To him they sounded like funeral bells._ }

He reflected on his thoughts for the day as he ran a bath. In a way, the bells had been funeral bells today. They had marked the death of his soul simultaneously with the union of Akira and Haru. 

"Don't funeral bells typically sound after death, not along with it?" he mused aloud to himself pointlessly. It really, really didn't matter, but his mind was going so fast and he couldn't bring himself to put energy into stopping the flow of thoughts. They would stop soon anyway.

Finally tearing his eyes away from his abandoned art, he trudged to his bathroom. He started to run a bath and made it his preferred temperature out of habit. He supposed that was a good thing, there was no point being unnecessarily uncomfortable in his final moments. He even added bubbles to the water. If this were to be Yusuke's final bath then he wanted it to be a nice one. Once the bath was full to the brim he shut off the running water and finally acknowledged the little shopping bag clutched in his right hand.

{ _The blue-haired man was numb all over. He had spent all day forcing smiles and faking friendly joy all for the sake of not hurting Akira. He had been so cruel and awful, and yet Yusuke still loved him. He wouldn't feel like this if he didn't love Akira unconditionally. It was finally over and he was going to go home and just drown himself in art to try and feel something again. However, as he was leaving Akira had bid him farewell. He couldn't remember the exact words, but there had been a hidden message in that farewell that said Akira was done with Yusuke forever. It hurt, it tipped him over the edge. For the first time that day Yusuke decided that he wouldn't go home to drown himself in art. Maybe he would just go home to drown himself._ }

There was a quaint little pharmacy not far from the artist's apartment. He went there often for painkillers for his headaches and knew the staff routine by heart. Luckily, the wedding had been at such a day and time that he arrived at the pharmacy right in the middle of a certain woman's shift. This woman worked this shift entirely alone, and did not follow the rules. She didn't stick to the limits and let you buy as many pills as you wanted so long as you paid her off. Yusuke had drawn out plenty of money to bribe her and then bought enough sleeping pills to knock out an elephant. He wouldn't be needing his savings for anything else now anyway, and he didn't have any family to leave it to. Why leave it rotting in an account that would never be used again?

The realisation that he really was all alone hit him again. Before, it had been fine. He had been Akira's and Akira had been his. At least, he thought so. It disgusted him that his heart was crying out that he was still Akira's. 

"How can you still be his...? You're being stupid, he doesn't even want you...!" he hissed to himself viciously. "You were a tool to him, just like to Madarame-sensei. They both only wanted you for what you could give them...! No one loves you, Yusuke, so stop this!"

He had started sobbing as he berated himself and desperately started to shed his clothing with unnecessary speed, as if he couldn't stand wearing them. Illogical. Completely and utterly illogical. Behaving like this did no good and changed absolutely nothing, but he didn't care. That man had obliterated his artist's soul, and still all he could do was love him. It was pathetic.

Once he was naked he managed to calm himself just enough to think again. Wiping his tears away gently with his thumb, he took a shuddering breath. If he said that he wasn't afraid of death he would be lying. It was just that he was afraid of being alone again more. Yusuke took a moment to trace the lines of his body with his hands. For now he was still alive, and he needed to remind himself of that to centre his focus, otherwise he would never go through with this. He needed to, there was nothing left for him...

There was a glass in the bathroom he kept for late night glasses of water. He filled it up to the brim and started of by taking two sleeping pills before finally lowering himself into the water. He sat in silence for a minute, letting the warmth soak into his skin. He took another sleeping pill. Another. He didn't know how many he would need to take to stop himself from waking up and preventing himself from drowning. The only way was to take as many as possible before he drifted into nothingness. 

His swiftly-approaching death was setting him on edge. Thoughts about what may come after made him tremble like a nervous kitten. What choice was there, though? If he kept living then what was there out there for him? For the rest of his life he would be nothing but a shell, and people would never stop asking, and he would have to exhaust himself coming up with excuses to never tell them so that he didn't ruin Akira's happiness with his wife. A bitter taste came into his mouth again at the thought of the wedding. Akira must have known what he was doing when he invited Yusuke...

{ _Shock rolled through Yusuke in waves as he read the invitation for the third time. Was this his lover's idea of a practical joke? This couldn't be for real, because if it was... If it was then everything Yusuke had ever felt between him and Akira had been a lie. Just the thought made him sick to the stomach. Akira's face would hold the answer, but he was too scared of what he might find to look. In the end it didn't matter. The man he loved asked why the hell he was getting so emotional about the end of a fling and began the process of tearing Yusuke's soul to shreds._ }

All he had been to Akira was a fling. He had flooded the artist's senses with sweetness and words of adoration. He had showered him with the most romantic of compliments only to reveal that it was all about the sex to him. Remembering that night ignited enough pain in him to push him into taking three more pills. It had been the worst moment of his life at the time, and things had only gotten worse since then.

Maybe that was the answer. All he had to do was make himself see how awful things were and he would find the strength to end it, to combat his natural survival instinct. 

He thought of Akira and Haru kissing today. He took a pill. 

He thought of their first dance as newlyweds, and how he had been alone at the side of the room. He took a pill.

He thought of those damned church bells and their insistent, joyful ringing. He took a pill.

He remembered all the times he and Akira had sex, he thought of all the times he practiced confessing to the black-haired man, he thought of the day he met his very own ray of light. He took so many pills that he could feel his body trying to throw them back up. 

Refusing to give in, he stubbornly kept them down and whimpered at the pain in his stomach. He wouldn't even drift into nothing at this rate, he wouldn't get his much-desired peace. He would writhe in pain from an overdose and suffer over hours as all of his organs slowly shut down because of the drugs. 

Then there was a miracle. He grew drowsy and felt himself slipping. Slowly his body dropped into the water, his lax muscles unable to prop him up anymore. He was vaguely aware of being submerged in the water, and then there was peace. 

There was a blackness that absorbed all his thoughts and his energy and his breath. It took away his very life and weakened him but by bit, but Yusuke could barely feel a thing... There was a brief moment of realisation that this was really it, he could no longer stop it, and then he wasn't even aware of that anymore. Nothingness, whole and dark, swallowed him.

\----

{ _There was a field of flowers. Yusuke really liked to go there, whenever he saw the tall and happy sunflowers he felt like his mother was with him. With tiny hands he held onto the petals of a sunflower even bigger than him and managed a goofy smile. There wasn't much that made him happy these days, but the field of flowers did. The beauty of the place made him realise how his mother was inspired. In her honour, the little boy wanted to try painting the field. He was three, and he was determined to do it to make his mother proud. It was the first painting he ever did and he was beyond proud of the inner peace he managed to express in it. The brush strokes weren't good, but with practice he would get better. Painting was his new haven, his new safe place now that his mother was gone. He hoped she would approve._ }

The same memory from his childhood played in his head on repeat. It was a happy one. The man didn't know where he was right now, but the memory of his first painting took away any fear. The memory was one of healing, of overcoming grief with his own inner passion. Eventually, he had enough of the memory and tried to force himself awake.

When he opened his eyes there were bright lights. He felt disorientated and dizzy; there was an aggressive pounding in his head that would not ease at all... The scent of chemicals and disinfectant invaded his senses. 

Part of his sluggish brain deduced that he was in a hospital, but he had no clue why. He remembered feelings, but not events. There was unbelievable heartbreak and despair, but he couldn't for the life of him remember why. Right now he was calm, though he tried to remember what had happened. If only there wasn't this fog over his brain...

His eyes opened fully and he noticed many familiar faces over his hospital bed. There was Ann... Futaba... Ryuji... Makoto... Haru and Akira standing hand in hand. Panic bloomed in his chest and tears welled in his eyes as he remembered. 

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't block out the depression that seeped back into him with each individual memory that slipped back into his head. There were tears in Ann's eyes too, he noticed. Futaba's lip was bleeding as if she had nibbled it in nerves a little too hard. Ryuji's nails were surprisingly bitten down. Haru and Makoto both looked like they hadn't slept in days... He didn't dare to look at Akira. He didn't want to risk seeing that he was unaffected.

"You idiot! Why would you try that crap?!" Ann's voice cried out with a note of hysteria. Did they really care so much about him? Yusuke never felt like he had been particularly close to the others, but maybe he was mistaken. He had never really been good at reading other people. 

He went quiet and dried his tears away before sighing. These people seemed to care, so why did he still want to die? Akira had seemingly cared and had turned his back on him in the end, who was to say these people would be any different? No. As much as he wanted to have friends and hope, he couldn't put himself through losing all that again. It was better to give in to the numbness. He turned his head away, shutting them out completely by refusing to talk to them. 

"... We'll come back later, Yusuke. We'll come back whenever you want us to," Makoto's voice said clearly yet softly. There was a shuffling noise as they all filed out of the room and left the artist to his shattered mind.

Silently, he swore to himself that no matter how many times they came back, he would not give in to their promises of care and companionship. It was not meant for him, he had been hurt one too many times to let this happen again... Better to befriend the bleakness of death. At least that was permanent. 

Undoubtably, Akira and the others would all take turns watching over him. Suicide watch. Various doctors had likely already recommended that they did once Yusuke was discharged. Somehow, he would have to find a way to make them give up on him... Somehow, he would have to reach that peaceful place again...


End file.
